How China's one-child policy overhauled the status and prospects of girls like me

Out of the shadow of male siblings, girls have thrived under China's one-child
policy, says only child Yuan Ren, whose father strived to give her
the very best education and 'investment' in her upbringing - something she
wouldn't have got if she had a brother

The incoming Chinese leadership has already moved to dismantle the Family Planning CommissionPhoto: Alamy

By Yuan Ren

8:00AM GMT 23 Dec 2013

The Chinese government announced last month that it would take steps toloosen its one-child-policy, which has been in place since 1979. The measure, which restricts couples in urban areas to one-child and rural areas to two children, has been one of the most controversial social policies of modern times, as well as one of the most effectively implemented of its scale.

While western media coverage of the measure has always underscored the inequality andforced abortions (336 million of them)as the social consequences of the policy, there is no denying that the rise of a single-child household in urban areas, which now accounts for over half of the country’s population, has overhauled the status of girls and their life prospects.

'Chinese traditional culture is deeply patriarchal'

China’s traditional culture is one that is highly patriarchal in its world view. Deep-rooted in Confucius thinking, the emphasis on the perpetuation of lineages and surnames through the male bloodline has persisted for over 2,000 years, and continues to exist at the fore of social consciousness today. A commonly used phrase “heavy on the son, light on the daughter” epitomises this type of old family outlook – sons are a worthy investment, while girls simply have not been. Girls traditionally adopted lower statuses in the household and concentrated on housework, while their brothers received special treatment as the ones worth the most returns on investment.

For those who have watched Disney’s Mulan– the tale of the wayward young woman who goes to war in her fathers’ place, the shame that a woman who ‘forgets her place’ in the gender hierarchy brings to the family makes up the essence of this thinking.

Unfortunately, this biased mentality has prevailed in modern culture and remains entrenched in rural communities. Before the one-child rule, news of a newborn boy was almost uniformly met with a “congratulations”, while news of a girl stil gets a conciliatory “girls are good too, it’s all the same” response.

However, the introduction of the one-child policy 30 odd years ago has effectively blunted much of this male-centric fancy in families where the first born was a daughter, conditioning grumpy fathers in the face of draconian state-laws to love their only child as if she were a son.

'The one-child policy helped me, as a girl, succeed in life'

As a single child born in China myself in the late 1980s, my own father, who back then was less than ecstatic at the news of a daughter, has no less strived to provide educational opportunities for me that beat what most boys of my age and background received – something that could easily have been shifted to a male sibling, if I'd have had one. Today, the narrative of every single child family in China is the same from parents to grandparents, irrespective of gender – how to provide the best for the child.

Chinese parents are emphatic about education – research shows that overwhelmingly large proportions of family resources are channeled towards children’s education, which can be expensive and vast in a country with a high-pressure education system that is competitive from a young age. Research into gender equalities of single-child families in China has found that singleton girls in urban areas have higher aspirations and have enjoyed significantly better educational opportunities than those from multi-children families.

China's one-child policy has 'inadvertenly' boosted equality

Furthermore, a recent study shows that girls with brothers are on average schooled for a shorter number of years than those with sisters, which demonstrates that gender bias does play a key role in allocating resources for education.

While the one-child policy seems to have “inadvertently” contributed to equality outcomes, according to a publication in the Journal of Family Issues last year, it has no less transformed prospects for women in urban China, where as high as 90 per cent of households can be single-child families, in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

'Little emperors'

A Chinese family

But much has also been made of the isolation that children from these single-child families experience, as well as the supposed social ineptness that comes with being the sole focus of attention – turning children into spoilt and self-centered “little emperors” that embody such characteristics.

In my own case, no doubt it would have been much more fun to have siblings growing up, but communities in China are more integrated compared to the UK, particularly at the tail-end of the socialist-era in the 1990s, where state-owned firms still housed employees’ families in large residential complexes. Back then, colleagues’ children attended the same school and played in large groups within a safe neighbourhood environment – it was no less socially cultivating or stimulating than having siblings, and far from lonely.

In fact, it was only when I moved to London for secondary school that I became aware of restrictions to my freedom – there was no community of children to play with, as families lived far apart, and running around unaccompanied was considered irresponsible on the part of my parents.

The other major assumption that too much attention equates to selfishness in adulthood is also not without holes – Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, who has conducted studies on tens of thousands of singleton children from both the US and China since the '70s, came to the conclusion that no measurable differences exist in terms of sociability and characterisation between singleton children and multi-sibling children. Except that single children scored higher on intelligence and achievement – due to a lack of “dilution of resources” – which holds true irrespective of economic circumstances.

'Liberating impact'

Girls education has soared thanks to the one-child policy

The one-child policy in China has had a liberating impact on the lives millions of women who are better educated and more independent than ever before – and the confidence and self-assurance is evident in those who have grown up in highly nurturing environments out of the shadows of male siblings.

Despite overall improvements to women’s lives and their social prominence however, women still face huge battles in social equality as a result of traditional conceptions – from being starkly underrepresented in professions and high-ranking roles to facing common gender stereotypes. And of course, China has the impending problems of supporting an ageing population with a comparatively narrow workforce, which is also skewed towards the male sex, one that could have serious social implications for the future.

The relaxation of the one-child rule is overdue. China has reached a level of prosperity that should allow families to enjoy personal freedom that comes with the country’s economic boom. But without a doubt, the investment that the country has poured into girls in the last 30 years is wildly beyond anything that could have achieved without the policy.

Yuan Ren is a freelance journalist who grew up in both London and Beijing. She can be found tweeting @girlinbeijing